


Cemetery gates

by aces



Category: Doctor Who: Eighth Doctor Adventures - Various Authors
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-31
Updated: 2010-05-31
Packaged: 2020-10-18 16:10:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20641979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aces/pseuds/aces
Summary: In which Fitz Kreiner hangs about cemeteries not singing Smiths lyrics.





	Cemetery gates

“Hello, mum.”

Fitz felt like an idiot.

He cleared his throat, and ducked a look around. He was the only one there. Living, anyway. He hoped. For all he knew, undead vampires were going to come crawling out of the ground. God, traveling with the Doctor made a person paranoid.

He took a step closer. “Dad.” They were right where he remembered his dad being, where his mum had dragged him to visit his dad every year on his dad’s death day and other days in between for over ten years. Fewer times the older she got, the less aware she was.

He inched a little closer and stared down at the stone. Simple, nothing fancy; they couldn’t afford it. But his mum’s name was there, and the years of her life, right next to his dad.

Fitz frowned.

“So…” he said and took another look around the cemetery to make sure there really was nobody else within eye—or ear—shot. “So. Um.” Hello, Fitz Kreiner, first class ass. He remembered something and started digging at the inside pocket of his trench.

“I brought you this.” He took the wilted white rose out of his coat and knelt down to place it on her stone. He didn’t get up right away, reaching out hesitantly to trace the letters and numbers with his finger, brush away some overgrown and dead grass and weeds and mud. He frowned again and wiped his hand on his trousers.

“I’ve been keeping busy, mum. You’d be really proud, actually; I’ve finally gotten off my arse and *done* something, y’know? I’m not just working whatever dead-end job will take a half-kraut…”

He coughed and stood up awkwardly, rubbing at the back of his neck. This was stupid. Really, really stupid. He was talking at dead people; they were going to be deafer than Compassion in a snit or the Doctor lost in his own world. “Sorry,” he whispered, looking at his dad’s marker, and he cleared his throat again. “Sorry, I…I’ll just…”

He started to turn away, sighed, and turned back again. “I said I’d do this, and I’m going to do this. Mum. I was telling you about what I do.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t really have a job, actually. I mean, not a paying one. I just wander around and save people, really. It’s my friend, the Doctor…” He leant down again, because standing up and talking like this just felt stupider, even if he had to hold his body awkwardly so he didn’t get his trousers muddied. The tails of his trench were probably already dragging in it. “He’s got this—ship. We end up anywhere; he doesn’t really know how to drive it, and…and there’s always somebody or lots of somebodies in trouble. We help them.”

He gave up, his knees killing him, and sat down on the grass, resting his back against an upright headstone behind him and pulling his knees up, because he really didn’t want to be sitting over his mum’s and dad’s grave. It was one thing to talk to them. To his mum. Another to sprawl out all over the ground they were buried under. “I’ve done a lot, mum, I really have,” he said, staring down at her marker without really looking at, seeing it. “You wouldn’t believe some of the places I’ve been, and the people I’ve met…you met the Doctor. And Sam, I think you met Sam. She’s gone now, gone to save the planet on her own, I think.” A smile flickered on his face, faded away, and he pulled the fedora off his head to play with it, resting his arms on his knees. “You liked the Doctor, didn’t you? Before you went…” He hurried on. “Anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing the past couple years. I think it’s been a couple years. Maybe longer. Or less…” He frowned again, brow scrunching up despite himself, and shut up for a minute because now he was just flailing.

“I’m sorry,” he said at last, looking now at the fedora he twisted in his hands. “I’m sorry I ran away rather than take care of you, and I’m sorry I didn’t come back sooner to make sure you were taken care of properly. I couldn’t stay, the police were after me, and the Doctor offered to let me come with them, and—and what else did I have to do, mum?” He didn’t want to sound plaintive, but he did. “What else was I supposed to do? I had no reason to stay…”

He was frowning so hard now it hurt.

“I’m sorry I keep pretending to be people I’m not,” he told both his parents, pressing his back against the cold stone behind him. This was so stupid. He couldn’t stop himself. “It never works right, anyway. But, dad…dad, I wish you’d met the Doctor. He stands up for people, people like you…” He realized he was crying and rubbed at his face, angrily. He was a grown man. His father had died fifteen years ago or more, and his mother had been sick off and on all his life. This was so _stupid_. But he hadn’t even thought to come here since he’d first left in ’63, and this time around when they’d landed in London in the ‘80s and he’d realized with a start his parents had both been buried over twenty years…he had to see. Check up on them. It wasn’t even a death day.

It wasn’t even really _his_ parents.

“Something happened, mum,” he said, slowly. “Something…recently. I—I don’t know what, exactly, as I wasn’t really there. Not me. I don’t know exactly what happened to him, I don’t remember what was going through his head, to make him do what he did—what *I* did. But he must’ve felt like he had no other options, like the Doctor was never going to come back…”

He took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry, mum. I’m not me. I mean, I *am* me, and I remember being me, and I remember you, and dad…oh god.” He wrapped his arms around his knees, bringing them in closer to his body. “Oh god. I’m supposed to get used to this feeling, I think. This—body. I am Fitz Kreiner. Oh god.” He ducked his head, taking a deep breath. “Mum. Mum. Is this how you felt, sometimes?”

He sniffled and froze because he could feel somebody hovering nearby. And the other person apparently figured out they’d been discovered, because now he could hear footsteps soft on the grass and he really didn’t want to look up just now.

“Hello, Fitz,” the Doctor said softly, and Fitz jammed the fedora on his head in an attempt to hide his face, which even he found pretty lame.

“How’d you find me?”

“You have my sonic screwdriver in your coat pocket,” the Doctor sighed and sat down next to Fitz. “I went to ask you for it and you weren’t there. The screwdriver’s a pretty unique piece of technology…” He paused. “Would you rather I leave?”

Fitz shrugged.

“Have you been meaning to come here for long?”

Fitz shook his head. “Didn’t think of it till now,” he admitted. “Probably should have.”

“We usually have a lot on our minds,” the Doctor said. His voice had been very, very gentle throughout the conversation.

Fitz nodded.

“My father always told me to pick my battles,” the Doctor said, and Fitz chanced a peek at him from under his hat brim. The Doctor was looking around the cemetery, taking in the view, carefully not looking at his friend. Fitz pushed the brim of his fedora back a little. “He said I was too stubborn.” He laughed a little. “My mother said I was just contrary.” He looked back at Fitz, too quickly for Fitz to look away. “Did I ever tell you how very sorry I was your mother died, Fitz?”

Fitz frowned again, and tried to nod and shake his head at the same time, and rubbed at his eyes again. The Doctor pressed his shoulder against Fitz’s and looked away. Fitz was impressed. Sometimes the Time Lord forgot consideration.

They sat in silence for a while, the Doctor looking about the cemetery and Fitz staring at the markers in front of him. “My dad never picked his battles,” he said suddenly and felt the Doctor’s attention swing back to him instantly. “He just—took it.”

“Perhaps that was his way of picking his battles?”

Fitz blinked. “And your dad?”

“I always thought he just—took it—too. It frustrated me.” Fitz snorted and looked up in time to catch the Doctor’s wry smile. “It sometimes led to a lot of shouting on my part.”

Fitz nodded, remembering some shouting of his own, and dropped his head against the back of the gravestone. “This is pretty morbid, isn’t it?”

“Hanging about in a graveyard speaking to your buried parents, you mean? Oh, I don’t know. I think it’d be more morbid if zombies were crawling out of one of these graves and we were here during a full moon.”

“See? You do make people paranoid.” The Doctor grinned, looking down at the grass beneath his feet. He had his knees drawn up to his body too. Fitz didn’t know if that was him being polite, or if he didn’t want Fitz’s dead parents under his legs either.

“You never really got a chance to mourn your mother, did you? We were off and running, just like always. Just like always.” The Doctor looked up at him again, clear blue eyes under his curly fringe. “I think it’s perfectly reasonable if you want to finally say good-bye. Work some things out. You’ve gone through a lot, Fitz.”

Fitz swallowed, and nodded, looking down at his knees again. He dug into his trench coat pockets and handed the sonic screwdriver over to the Doctor. The Doctor pocketed it without comment and stood up. “At least they’re lying in a lovely spot,” he said, and Fitz looked up to see him taking another look at the grass and trees and sun and quiet. The Doctor turned back to him and asked, “Do you want to stay a bit longer?”

Fitz looked at the markers again. “No,” he said at last. “No, I think I’m done here.”

The Doctor silently held out a hand. Fitz took it and lifted himself up, startlingly easy with the Doctor’s strength to help. Even more startling, the Doctor didn’t let go of his hand, pulling him into a hug instead. Fitz clung, a little longer than he ever would have admitted to. Then he pulled back, and the Doctor clapped him on the back, sliding his arm around Fitz’s shoulder and leading him out of the cemetery.

“Thanks,” Fitz said just as they reached the cemetery gates.

“You’re welcome,” said the Doctor.

*


End file.
